Voting for the 31st annual MusicRow Awards begins Tuesday, May 14 and ends on Tuesday, May 21 at 5:00 p.m.

The invitation-only MusicRow Awards will be held Wednesday, June 26 at the War Memorial Auditorium.

Readers must have a valid and current subscription to vote. Click here to purchase or renew subscription.

This year will also feature new categories including Artist of the Year, Label of the Year, Discovery Artist of the year, Male Songwriter of the Year, Female Songwriter of the Year, and Agency of the Year.

Totaling 11 categories in all, other awards include Producer of the Year, Song of the Year, Breakthrough Artist of the Year, Breakthrough Songwriter and Breakthrough Artist-Writer.

MusicRow will also honor the Top 10 Album All-Star Musicians Awards at the event, recognizing the studio players who played on the most albums reaching the Top 10 of Billboard’s Country Album Chart during the eligibility period. Honors will be presented for guitar, bass, drums, fiddle, keyboards, steel, vocals and engineer categories.

Supporting Sponsors of the event are Vaden Group | Elliott Davis, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Keller Turner Andrews & Ghanem, PLLC. Partner level sponsors are Ram Trucks and City National Bank.

The historic War Memorial Auditorium, one of the early homes of the Grand Ole Opry and where U.S. Presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon have delivered speeches, was built in 1925 and remains one of Nashville’s most elegant and revered buildings.

MusicRow Subscribed Members will receive invites for complimentary balcony seating. Purchased tables include premium floor seating. For tickets and seating, click here.

Rap Coalition’s Wendy Day interviews Slick Rick at Music Biz 2019 Conference. Photo: Instagram/@musicbizassoc

Rapper and entertainer Slick Rick celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his debut album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick in November. The rap icon was the the third artist signed to the legendary rap label, Def Jam Recordings, and he is one of the most sampled artists of all time with what the “La Di Da Di” rapper estimates to be about 650 to 700 times.

Slick Rick made an appearance at the Music Biz conference in Nashville on Tuesday (May 7) to have a conversation with Wendy Day, founder of the Rap Coalition—a non-profit artists’ advocacy organization to educate, inform, and unify rap artists, producers, and DJs. Empty seats were few and far between.

“When did you start to really learn the business?” asked Day. “When I started gettin’ robbed,” quipped Rick. “You get your first royalty check and it says ‘Negative.’ I’m like ‘what?!'”

Rick quickly learned about recoupment and how to manage his financials as an artist. “Most of the money that I earned came from shows and touring. Shows, merchandising, things like that,” he said.

“You gotta be careful because the next thing you know you have people saying ‘What did you do with your money?’ and ‘You don’t know how to manage money.’ There’s a lot of criticism when things don’t work out that are designed not to. You’ve got to be careful. Take your show money, buy your little properties, set yourself up for retirement,” Rick said.

Rick talked about creating and knowing your lane as an artist, and making sure that your partners in business allow you to stay authentic to that lane. He also highlighted the importance of promoting yourself, specifically in the world of rap and hip-hop.

“You create your own lane, and you promote yourself,” Rick said. “You invest back into yourself. That’s why we have the jewelry and the cars. You’re investing back into yourself because you have an image to promote. Even though you’re not making much on royalties, you still need to give your community a celebrity—something that looks like a celebrity.

“When we first came out you would see the big rope chains and nice fancy cars and stuff like that,” he continued. “It was like, you’re promoting yourself. You’re promoting success in an urban community.”

Day bragged on Rick for his philanthropic efforts, including supporting fellow U.K.-born rapper 21 Savage in his recent entanglement with U.S. immigration, as well as giving back to his community in the Bronx of New York and entertaining at benefit concerts.

“Our lane is just to entertain and inspire and let the politicians do what they’re good at,” Rick said.

Darius Rucker. Photo: David McClister

Darius Rucker’s gravel-meets-velvet voice has launched chart-topping hits in both the pop and country spheres (not to mention countless sing-alongs) since he launched his career as the lead singer and bassist for Hootie & The Blowfish in the ‘90s, with classics such as “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You,” and later became one of country music’s most distinctive voices with solo hits such as “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” “It Won’t Be Like This For Long,” and the country radio evergreen “Wagon Wheel.”

Tonight (May 7), Rucker will be honored for another endeavor close to his heart—his ongoing efforts to help children. Rucker is this year’s recipient of the Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award at tonight’s Music Biz 2019 Awards and Hall of Fame Dinner in Nashville. Rucker says he was more surprised than anyone to find out about the honor.

“You do your thing and you try to help people as much as you can, and you don’t care if anyone is watching, but then you find out people are looking and respect the work you are doing for others. It’s cool,” he tells MusicRow.

On June 3, Rucker will host and headline the Darius & Friends concert at the Ryman Auditorium. Rucker has hosted the concert in Nashville for the past decade; to date, the event has raised more than $1.6 million. He was inspired to launch the concert after visiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis in 2008.

“We went by and talked to the kids and their parents. I thought that it would be cool if we could start doing something to help. And there are always kids that you met years ago, that you see today and they made it through treatments and they are doing well and living life. It makes me so happy for them and their families. ”

Rucker and his Hootie & The Blowfish bandmates have also aided more than 200 organizations that focus on public education and youth golf programs through their Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation.

Every fall, the foundation hosts Hootie’s Hometown Roundup, which helps underprivileged children in the Charleston County School District, by helping provide children with free annual eye exams, dental exams, new shoes, haircuts and a backpack filled with school supplies. For Rucker—who still resides in Charleston, South Carolina—the event is a chance to help his local community.

“We go to it every year, so there are so many people I know, so it’s helping people on that level, people I know,” he says. “It’s good to see these kids walking around with their backpacks and knowing they have all the supplies that they need.”

Rucker says that each year, they try to pick a different area around Charleston.

“It really is a location thing,” he says. “We try to help the areas each year that need it the most. It just keeps growing and that’s a good thing.”

It was at nearby University of South Carolina where Rucker and three friends formed Hootie & The Blowfish, growing the ensemble from frathouse favorites to a worldwide musical touchstone. Since releasing 1994’s Cracked Rear View, the group has sold more than 25 million albums to date, while Cracked Rear View earned Diamond certification from the RIAA.

Later this month, Rucker will reunite with his Hootie bandmates for their Group Therapy Tour, marking their first full-scale tour in over a decade. The group also announced they had signed with UMG Nashville, the label home to Rucker’s solo country career, and will release a new project later this year—their first since 2005’s Looking For Lucky.

“We are doing one or two songs from the album on the road, but we really just got the record finished and it should be out later this year,” notes Rucker, who says he also has plans in the works for his sixth solo country album (the follow up to 2017’s When Was The Last Time), which he hopes to release in 2020.

“I’m dealing with the same folks now with me and the group, and I love being able to do this with everyone at Capitol and UMG,” he says of his Nashville family. “It definitely helps with timelines and makes everything much easier. It’s been fun; we love getting back into it and we are looking forward to going on tour.”

Hootie & The Blowfish’s Group Therapy Tour launches May 30.

Luke Combs. Photo: Jim Wright

Luke Combs tops this week’s country albums ranking, with This One’s For You at No. 1 with 25K in total consumption, according to Soundscan. Dan + Shay‘s self-titled project comes in at No. 2 with 15K in total consumption, followed by Dylan Scott‘s debut EP, Nothing To Do Town, at No. 3 with 13K.

Chris Stapleton‘s Traveller is at No. 4 with 12K, followed by Maren Morris‘ GIRL at No. 5 with 12K.

Randy Rogers Band debuts Hellbent this week at No. 24 on the country albums chart with 5.6K, while Maddie & Tae debut at No. 84 on the country albums chart with One Heart To Another moving 2.7K in total consumption.